[HOW TO] Perform a Scorpion Taxidermy

Hi,

As a few of you may know we recently lost the first scorpion we bought, our male P.imp Tank.

As its our first i decided i wanted to keep him so had been looking into ways i could preserve him and was sure i had read a post by ladyriotcontrol on taxidermy so after a lot of hunting i found it and decided to give her method a go, also decided to make a picture log to post to show how i did it and how he turned out (good or bad lol)

Firstly here is the link to Ladyriotcontrols original post (thanx lisa for posting it, its a great method)

First i cut along the top of the stomach segments (this is quite hard its like cutting leather! you need a really sharp knife)

Then i scooped out the insides (nice lol) and then used a cotton bud with alcohol gel and disinfectant to make sure he was all clean and then dried with another bud, then i stuffed him with fluffed up cotton wool being careful to check with the photo of him i took before to make sure he looked right.

Then i cut a small piece of card around the same length of the stomach cut and slid it in so that there was something to glue the body back to, i also coloured this piece of card a dark brown to match the colour of the other side of his stomach, and glued him back up. Once he was dry i got him ready for hair spraying by arranging his legs and bluetacking his pedipalps open. I found i really had to push the bluetack right down in the gap where the claw opened for them to stay open but so that you couldn't see it.

Then i laid him on his back and sprayed all over (apart from the tail) using a cotton

bud to dab off any drips on the hairs and body.

Then once dry (i cheated and used a hairdryer to speed up the process)i turned him over and positioned him how i wanted him to look by using bluetack to hold the tail up in place, and sprayed him again (i used quite a few layers of spray for the top to make sure the tail stayed up) once again i used a hairdryer to speed up the drying process. (i'm so impatient) then removed the bluetack.

Then i thought hmmm what the hell am i gonna do with him now.

So decided that to make sure he stayed safe he needed to be in some sort of case/box and decided to utilise an empty cricket box (until i find something better)

So i took the lid of the cricket box and turned it upside down and mixed a load of substrate with PVA glue and stuck it to the lid (not knowing if it would work lol) then once the glue had dried i sprayed it with hairspray for some extra hold, once dry i took a pin and the scorpion and stuck it up through the box and substrate and into the scorpion and this is what it looks like. i can then use the cricket box to go over the scorpion to keep him safe. this is really only a temporary measure until i can find something more professional looking like a plaque and some sort of glass dome.

Im also going to add a cricket or locust into his pedipalp at some point think that will look awesome!